


Sure Fooled Me

by Lucy_Ferrier



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Episode 8, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26418607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Ferrier/pseuds/Lucy_Ferrier
Summary: After Adil leaves Toby's room.He has a note to write.
Relationships: Toby Hamilton/Adil Joshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Sure Fooled Me

Head down, eyes up, but not so far as to invite anyone to look. Step after step, one after the other, the door clicks shut and he doesn’t look back, he can’t look back, step after step, one foot after the other, don’t stop, don’t stop, just put one foot after the other. Adil even manages to make it to the stairs before he feels the first tear escape.

He has a shift to finish, but maybe he should start on his resignation now. The thought comes like a punch in the gut, Toby’s cold fury slipping through him again. The offices would have paper, but then he’d have to face Mr Garland, explain why he needed the paper, the pen, explain why he was leaving. How was he ever supposed to explain why he was leaving.

Adil felt the back of his head thunk back against the wall of the cellar, his jaw clenched over a broken sob. _Deep breaths, deep breaths,_ step after step, one foot after the other. He can’t let himself cry here, in the staff passages; though empty in that precise moment, they were soon to be crowded with busboys and waiters, and every other kind of maid, for the night’s event and he couldn’t afford to, but more importantly, couldn’t stand to be seen in a state like this, when he knew he’d be forced to lie about why.

And he wasn’t allowed to hurt like this about Toby. He didn’t get that right anymore. He never really had.

There would be paper at the front desk, but also in the staff areas; leftover notepaper used to record stocks and orders and suchlike, shorthand and scribbles tucked into yellowed folds, and a pen discarded on the table, a seat already pulled out from where someone had been forced off their break early, but it seemed to invite Adil now; look at this, all laid out for you, waiting for you, ready for you. He curled into the chair, tucked in the corner, the third-floor staff area long since abandoned as everyone had rushed to the ground floor to prepare, and gripped the pen harshly in his hand.

His resignation. That’s what he was meant to write.

But.

What if.

Well, that’s what he _ought_ to write. It was what was fair to Mr Garland, but really, he could just leave. Step after step, one foot after the other, and not look back. Disappear, Toby had said, has asked, no, _demanded_ of him. The sob slipped out, he rubbed his face, bit down on his hand, _please, please, keep it together, hold it together, please, hold it together,_ and his shoulders shook with the effort of holding them still.

Asking him to leave may well, under different circumstances, different context and different delivery, have been a last request of him, as both him and Toby turned away from the remnants of their relationship, but everything else… no, Toby hadn’t asked out of any remaining sense of attachment. He just wanted him gone. That, he had made abundantly clear.

He’d said he _disgusted_ him. Each replay of the words in Adil’s head, warped and respoken, that snarl a fixture in his mind but turning all the more twisted as he focused on it, and it was like wrapping his hand around a knife each time, and unable to think of anything else, it was as if he were lying there, watching the blood run down his arm.

There were few things Adil treasured more than anything else; his family, his job, and Toby. Always Toby, he’d never outrun his love for Toby, no matter how much it had hurt him, was hurting him. Mr D’abbervile had held his family hostage over him, dangled their lives over his head in a figmented noose, and no matter what he did he was going to lose them one way or another, the moment he was caught. Toby was taking – no, had taken – his job, _there is no place for you here and their never will be,_ though it felt more like _and there never was._ And Toby had taken himself away, taken himself back, and Adil had been losing him since the very first threat, had known that, had dreaded that, but now he’d lost him properly for the second time, and he had to face the fact that he was never getting him back.

What did he have to lose?

Adil stared at the paper, still lying innocently on the table, the pen gripped harshly in his hand. It hurt, it all hurt so much, had been hurting so much, for so long, since that first threat, and every one that had followed, since Toby had been brought in for questioning, since Toby had found out, and every glance and wounded look, every snarl and dismissive look, and he was _tired._ It hurt and he was tired. He wanted it to stop, he just wanted it to stop, all of the hurts, pinpricks turned to knife wounds, to himself, to his family, who didn’t even know what was happening, who had never had any idea of the risk _he_ put them in just for existing, just for being seen. To Toby, who he’d taken advantage of too many times, every kiss and every theft, who, if what he said was true, Adil had taken advantage of in so many more ways than he’d known. Disgusted indeed. Adil could almost have felt bile crawling up his throat at the thought.

Step after step, one foot after the other, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from looking back the entire time, every mistake laid bare in front of him as everything he cared about was taken away from him, and he didn’t have anything left in him, there was nothing left to fight for.

Wouldn’t it be easier if he just-

If he-

Adil picked up the paper, pen gripped harshly in his hand, and started to write.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry.


End file.
